


To My Cousin With Love

by KoroMarimo



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Alucard is a troll, Character Turned Into Vampire, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Cousins, Family, Family Drama, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 13:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoroMarimo/pseuds/KoroMarimo
Summary: She was your childhood idol and you fervently worshipped her with the naïveté of youth. Her father considered you her greatest enemy, and as the two of you became older and took over during the deaths of both Richard and Arthur, you worried she still held that animosity towards you.You were not your father’s heir, nor were you the monster Arthur Hellsing built you up to be. You were her family, and you loved her dearly.





	To My Cousin With Love

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from my Tumblr.

Really it was your uncle Arthur who didn’t let her become close to you.

Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing had everything better it seemed: a better education, a better ensemble for dinner parties, better toys, but you didn’t care. All you wanted was a playmate. A cousin who would listen to your fears about your father squandering everything he got his hands on, or perhaps someone you could show any emotion around without screaming they’d send you away to an asylum. But Uncle Arthur would call her away when you approached on the pretense of scolding for something she’d done. Yet you knew, you heard what he’d said to her.

“Keep your distance.” he’d say. “You do not want to be mixed up in that lot.”

Your father took notice of Uncle Arthur’s persistence in keeping you apart, and he told you drunkenly one night that he would be sure to secure something for you once his brother’s sickness took hold. Anything. Even a title. Just to be certain that Arthur’s little bitch of a child wouldn’t get to it first. Even after both deaths you still didn’t care about the little things. You pitied her because she didn’t have anyone to take care of her, or to help her as the head of estate. After all the debts were figured out and settled, you just wanted a family to belong to. Hers specifically. But though her father was dead and all theoretical barriers removed, your relationship remained detached.

Your mother had some sense it turned out. Secret assets you didn’t know existed helped float the both of you for the next few years and helped you take off as a novelist of fine adolescent literature. You spent half your life disassociating from your father’s name and just trying to become the you that was lost under the roof of Richard Hellsing so many years ago. Beaten into silence, you were only just beginning to try again. You sent Integra flowers, a spray of daffodils, every Sunday along with a letter yet never received a reply. You sent her first edition hardcovers of your books in the hopes that she’d read them and be touched: the two protagonists of your bestseller were twins, with the eldest taking the name of Fairbrook and the youngest claiming your own middle name. For years you waited to hear a reply and received nothing. Invitations to come and have dinner at your modest house were often ignored, or at best replied to on behalf of the master of the house to respectfully decline your invite. Integra never responded personally, and it didn’t do much in helping mend your broken spirit.

“Have I done something wrong to her? Why doesn’t she answer any of my letters?” you’d ask your publisher, inquiring as to wether or not you’d gotten something in her scrawl amidst the fanatical scribbling of fan letters.

Your publisher, far cheaper than a therapist, would only shake his head and ask for your manuscripts.

The latest novel wasn’t mathematically a novel to begin with. If you could begin to describe it, you might describe it as a work that began as a memoir and ended as one of the longest letters of affection addressed to the only living relative you possessed. Before you took the completed manuscript to your publisher, you had to take it to Integra and show her that all these years spent ignoring you hadn’t hardened your heart. You had to show her you weren’t your father’s heir nor were you the imaginary enemy Uncle Arthur had imagined. You had to show her that you were her cousin and her family, despite the fact that she was inaccessible and cold towards you. She had to know that for years you considered her a sister, and no matter how many times you were angry and hurt at her rebuffs you still loved her very, very much.

Armed with a stapled and numbered page copy of your manuscript (just in case she acted rashly and tried to scatter the pages), you set out to her manor, instructing your driver to be on alert close by, just in case you were kicked out or were kept waiting for too long. Much to your surprise, you were welcomed in by the old butler Walter, who took the manuscript and offered you tea before he sent you off.

“You’ll forgive Sir Integra for being unable to receive you personally,” he’d said as he poured the tea, “But I am afraid she is in a conference at the moment and will not be available for some time.”

“I can wait if I have to Walter.” You insisted. “I have to show her, I wasn’t the child that Richard tried to raise and he didn’t break what I held in my heart. She’s my family, and I love her dearly.”

That would have been your last words. For as suddenly as your sentence ended a hoard of men, no, monsters at best, had decided to make their appearance and begin causing bedlam. Walter had managed to get away thanks to your help, but when he tried to take you with him you refused. You’d come so far, a stubborn child’s voice in your mind insisted that you had to find Integra and protect her. With what could you defend her? Well, you were so keyed up the only weapon you’d thought to bring was the manuscript in a manila envelope. Rolling it up and using it to smack these monsters over the head only succeeded in aggravating them, buying you the minimal amount of time to escape.

It was far too late for medical assistance by the time they found you. Stray bullets had been the culprits, stupidly you’d gotten caught in the crossfire, greatly underestimating the ghoul’s ability to shoot and managing only just in time to barricade yourself in one of the many rooms you’d roamed in your childhood. The manuscript was stained red. You were face down in the carpet with your eyes blown wide. Hardly managing to breathe because the pain was too great, and you couldn’t feel your fingers anymore when you tried to crawl to safety.

Through tears and crimson you could see your cousin, but you couldn’t hear her too well through the ringing in your ears from deafening gunfire. She was screaming in your face, trying to tell you something, shaking you and causing more pain than she intended but you didn’t understand what she was trying to say. You so wanted to reassure her. Wanted to ease her worry and let her know it would be alright, but you didn’t know how to begin to try because the pain was fading into fatigue. Darkness fell across your vision slowly until you could no longer see Integra’s piercing blue eyes or her copper skin glistening with sweat. The last thing you remembered was red entering your field of vision, your cousin’s last words invading your dreamless, eternal sleep, and a pair of pearlescent white eye teeth glimmering as your field of vision turned to dark.

“-that’s an order!” a voice cried out.

Who did it belong to? You did not know...

The sound of squeaking and dry throat invaded the darkness. Try as you might to become lost in it again, the noises grounded you. A thirst was building, making you crave a glass of water or some such liquid as though you craved the finest ambrosia. It was a bit of a nasty shock when you woke up from what felt like a very bad dream. You thought perhaps you’d had a nightmare, waking up in your room and your own bed.

Everything was dark. A bit cold and drafty from the norm, and your sheets weren’t as well worn. They felt silky, cool to the touch, devoid of any bodily warmth whatsoever yet you didn’t shiver. You chalked that up to the fatigue associated with a nightmare, turning in your covers to return to sleep. You figured it would do you no good to be dead tired when you took Integra the manuscript. Best to return to sleep and try to regain the rest that was lost.

But... Hold on...

Everything was coming into focus at a surprisingly alarming rate now that you were waking up. You weren’t in your mother’s house. This was not the bed your bestsellers had paid for. The room was so drafty because it was not the snug place you were used to. Devoid of any furniture save for stone wall, it was more akin to a dungeon cell than a cosy nest of your belongings. A pain of dread and anxiety pulled your stomach in a downward spiral, making you quake in your sheets as you wondered how in the hell you’d ended up in such a pickle.

You were nearly ready to scream for help when the door opened.

Integra was standing in the doorway, Walter at her side with a lit candelabra to guide her way into the dim room. You shot from the bed like a cadaver come back to life, breathless and trying to reason with yourself.

“Wh... Wa... What...!” you croaked. You were too parched to form words.

She said nothing. Clunky sounding footfall reverberated through the stone masonry as she approached you without speaking. When she sat beside you, your own body began shaking violently in tandem with her own. Her eyes betrayed no emotion, but the shaking made you only all the more apprehensive as she continued to stare at you with such intensity that you found yourself mute in her presence.

It was odd... But for some reason you were so hyper fixated on your cousin’s face that you couldn’t feel your heart pounding against your chest...

A raspy squeak erupted from your throat when she embraced you in a vice grip. All things considered, this was the most out of place. You wondered if this was still a dream, a hallucinogenic nightmare from which you could not wake. But the smell ofher clothes told you a very different story. She was a smoker, you could tell that much just by her scent. But it wasn’t the formaldehyde aroma of anyone on the street. No... This was cigar’s work. Hardy, spicy aromas of tobacco, hazelnut, clove, and a vintage brandy filled your nostrils. Combining beautifully with the earthy combinations of gin and highland pine, a signature aroma of Mayfair cologne by Creed to be precise. You could hear the crackle of her starched shirt beneath her tweed suit, rough beneath your fingertips when you reached out to return her embrace. Her hair was like straw and prickled your cheeks as she held you, as if she were afraid of you disintegrating at any moment. That, and something far more sweeter, an undertone of some sugary aroma woke you up completely and made something primal stir in your throat. She calmed your anxiety, yet stirred a hunger in your bones that could not be sated. Had your starvation for her affection been so horrible?

This wasn’t a dream. This was all very real.

“I thought I’d lost you.”

Her voice was rich and deep, so foreign and yet matching the image one would get from her cigar smoke scent. But it sounded so small when she spoke. As though beneath the façade of masculinity of the head of Hellsing, there was still that same bespectacled child hiding in the tweed, trembling and holding back the emotions she felt.

“Cousin...” you finally managed, finding yourself burying your face in her neck.

When she pulled away abruptly you found yourself holding her back, pulling her towards you. You didn’t intend to lose her again so early after this abrupt reunion. But she calmed you when gloved hands cupped your face ever so sweetly, thumbs stroking the apples of your cheeks as you felt the hunger and anxiety being masked by some unknown force.

“Sir Integra...” Walter spoke with a tone of urgency to his voice, stepping forward and making the candlelight sting your eyes. “I think it best to illuminate your cousin regarding the situation at hand. Better than leaving the poor thing in the dark.”

“I... What has happened?” You managed.

“There was...” She paused to clear her throat. “There was a... Situation.”

A hard glance from the old butler made her pause, rethink her words, sigh deeply, and begin again.

“Truth be told cousin, there was an attack. A ghoul attack, to be precise.”

Integra Hellsing began with an air of uncertainty, only growing in confidence when she recounted the situation at hand. In her own words she told you the Hellsing stronghold had been under attack by the undead, ghoulish apparitions with no known origin that feasted on the blood and flesh of her employees who killed these sorts of demons on a regular basis. Having not been a candidate for the head of the estate, you had been misinformed your entire life regarding the true nature of the Hellsing family. While you lived in the light, she delved deeper in shadows.

She hunted vampires, she said. Hunted them dead and protected queen and country with full support from the former, and a bitter sort of resistance from the latter. There were several incidents prefacing the current one; Badrick being the most recent, and Cheddar being the turning point in the investigation that was currently under way. During this whole time, you alternated between listening and feeling your body for wounds that could not seem to show up. There were no bandages. No indication that bullets had lodged themselves into your skin. Not even an exit wound or two to explain the lack of the bullet’s presence.

“But... I was shot cousin.” You interjected during Integra’s long winded explanation of past events. “I was shot. I felt the pain... I saw the darkness all around me...”

She paused. Uncertain again. There was that timid child from your youth again.

“I was coming to it...” she finally said. You saw her physically try to summon the strength to speak. Her shoulders stiffened, raised like hackles on a dog, then squared with the authority of a Hellsing family heir.

“You were at death’s door when we found you. There was no way to summon medical assistance in so dire of a situation. The bullets had gone through major organs. By all respects you were more than one foot in the grave, rather you were merely hanging off the edge of the burial plot by a few fingers.”

“Yet here I am...” you countered, “Alive and well.”

“Oh no.” interjected a voice with a deep, demonic chuckle. “Far from it. You’re very much dead my dear.”

The mounting anxiety you had been feeling throughout seemed to suddenly manifest in the form of a grinning, red creature that emerged from the shadows. He made you freeze. You could not scoot away from Integra or Walter nor could you summon any sort of a word. Your heart didn’t feel as though it was beating. Perhaps it too had been frozen in fear, surrendering to the crippling, crushing sensation of anxiety and dead panic as the man laughed.

“I’d have liked to make this reveal with a mite more tact and taste, Alucard.” Integra hissed.

“Why pussyfoot around the situation any longer and torment your poor cousin?” asked the creature, nay, asked the tallest, most pale man you’d ever seen in your life.

“You need to know the truth young one. I was given the order by your cousin to save your life, on pain of death.” He grinned. Raven locks of hair hid his pale face but could not conceal the pearlescent eye teeth or crimson eyes that made a phosphorous glow in the dark.

“You are undead. Nosferatu.”

“... a what?”

Your voice was small. Hardly more than a mouse’s squeak in your dry throat. A shaky hand felt along your chest to see if it was true. The cold reality struck when there was no frantic beating of your heart, only a mounting anxiety and stillness when you found you weren’t breathing much either. You’d begun trembling again, tears threatened in your eyes but could not form or fall. This frightened you again.

But Integra’s warmth and fragrance of cologne and cigar grounded you again when she wrapped her arms around you tightly, kissing your temple with chapped lips and assuring you that she would not see you suffer.

“I’ll be here to care for and protect you.” She murmured. “I... I will not stand to see you suffer alone. You will remain here with me, at my side, and I shall see to it that you are provided for.”

“Ah...” was all you could say. The tears could not come no matter how much you willed them forward.

“I’ve kept everything.” she murmured into your ear. “I know... you don’t have to tell me anything. I read through... That was a new piece wasn’t it? The manuscript... I know your heart. And know that, while my actions have not been proper in the slightest, I love you too. And I will not let you suffer this alone.”

She held you tightly, though you felt nothing of the pain. Had your heart still had a beat it surely would have stopped by now with sheer force of emotion surging through it. Being dead, or undead as it were, seemed to have it’s own merit. Had you been alive, perhaps your feelings would have been a jumbled mess forever. Now you felt oddly free. As though you could properly pick apart your emotions and understand them as they came without the pain of confusion or dread.

When you wrapped your arms around her again, she exhaled a breath you didn’t know she was holding. Was it relief? Was it fear? Was it something she’d been holding on for far too long?

You were unsure. You only knew that she was real and you were dead, and that you finally found what you thought was lost.


End file.
